


Rest Awhile with Me

by mg0918



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Clarke is bi as hell, Domestic, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 17:08:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11559654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mg0918/pseuds/mg0918
Summary: He's always been Bellamy and she's always been Clarke, and they've always been heading toward each other. (Childhood friends AU because I'm trash.)Snippets of their life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at work last night because my shift was dead lol, still need to hammer out some kinks but I needed something happy and fluffy.
> 
> **Apparently this is showing up in the clexa tag, I removed Clarke Griffin/Lexa from the tags when I was editing because they're not the main pairing but it's still showing up? If someone knows how to fix this please let me know I don't post a lot on this site and don't really know how to properly use the tags**

They meet when Clarke is five and Bellamy is ten, on a rainy Thursday afternoon when Octavia brings her over after school. Bellamy passes through while they play with a glittery makeup set that Aurora saved up for, and barely gives Clarke a second glance. Octavia introduces Clarke anyway, and Bellamy just blinks at her before shrugging and heading to his room.

He continues to semi-ignore Clarke for the next few months of what is her and Octavia’s blossoming friendship, save the occasional jab about her family’s wealth or use of the nickname ‘princess’, and that’s just fine with Clarke; he’s _ten_ , practically ancient, and a _boy_ , so she doesn’t really spare him any second glances either. He treats her coolly and remains aloof until one afternoon Octavia drags Clarke, who’s sporting a brilliantly purple black eye and a very satisfied smile, into their kitchen by the hand and announces that Clarke punched Andrew Roberts because he was making fun of Octavia for being on a reduced lunch payment plan.

Bellamy warms to her considerably after that, smiling at her when she's over and sneaking the two of them Kit Kats (their shared favorite) after Aurora cuts them off from sugar for the day. His bubble of brotherly protection and concern also expands to include Clarke, which means that one night when she bikes all the way from her house on the other side of town during one of her parents’ explosive fights, he makes a nest of pillows and blankets in his room and lets her read his comic books. Clarke notices that he gets a little indignant when they don’t come searching for her, and after a few hours he takes her hand to walk her and her bike all the way across town to pointedly bring her absence to their attention.

Clarke never minds that their house is a little disheveled or that they wear hand-me-downs, while she lives in a sprawling manor and always has nice toys; Bellamy stops minding that her family is wealthy because she always brings toys and clothes for Octavia, and books from her father's library and pastries made by the family’s chef for him. He still stubbornly insists on calling her princess, but it eventually turns from an insult spat through curled lips to a warm endearment.

Clarke notices that a lot of the times she’s over, Aurora has some sort of a drink in her hand. She notices that Bellamy hides the bottles where he hopes she won’t find them, even though she always does. She notices when she sleeps over that Aurora sometimes comes home in the middle of the night, laughing or crying loudly and walking off-kilter, and that Bellamy helps her take her coat and shoes off before tucking his mother into bed. She notices his expression every time, a grim mixture of disappointment and anger and sadness and disgust that should _never_ be seen on a ten year old’s face. Bellamy notices her noticing and begs her not to tell Octavia, so she doesn’t. They don’t talk about it after that.

Clarke learns before Octavia does about how Aurora pays their bills; she arrives earlier than she was meant to one night and watches a man exit their mother’s bedroom, buckling his belt. She shrinks back and retreats to Bellamy’s room, where his clenched fists and thunderous expression scare her just as much, and she thinks to herself that he’s too young to have such an old look on his face. He explains as much as he thinks a five year old could understand, saying that she does what she has to do to keep food on the table and the electricity going, and makes her swear up and down on the whole pantheon of the Greek gods he’s told her about not to tell Octavia. She doesn't, and the secret sits heavily between them.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These chapters are SO SHORT I'm sorry!!

They are nine and fourteen when Octavia finds out. She screams and curses at Bellamy for hiding it from her, and then screams and curses at her mother for forcing him to hide it. Aurora sits there, not making eye contact, tears rolling down her face, until Octavia runs up to her room and slams the door. As Clarke makes to follow her, she hears Aurora stand unsteadily.

“You were supposed to make sure she never found out. Your sister, your responsibility.” She spits at Bellamy before stalking out of the house. His face is murderous as he pushes past Clarke and stomps into his room. He comes into Octavia’s room a few hours later, spilling apologies and bearing chocolate. It doesn’t take her long to forgive him, so the three of them sit squashed together on the bed and talk about everything in the world except for Aurora, and for a while everything is okay.

‘Okay’ comes crashing down a few weeks later, the day that a dozen police cars screech up to Clarke’s house. She can barely get a word out before they’re pouring through the door, yelling something about an arrest warrant and embezzlement as they drag her father out of the house. Clarke screams and runs after him but someone - she’s not sure who - catches her arm and holds her back. She sees her mother staring blankly, detachedly, after her father and revulsion rips through her like a lightning bold. She kicks and bites and tears away from the restraining hands. She sprints down the steps, through the officers, through the media circus - the arrest of a councilwoman’s husband is big news - but her father is already bundled into the back of a cruiser, so she keeps running and doesn’t stop until she reaches the Blakes'.

Bellamy is sitting at the kitchen table, looking dejectedly over the electricity bill, and Clarke bursting through the door startles him so much that he almost falls out of his chair. He sees her standing there, chest heaving and eyes wild, and immediately yells for Octavia. He takes her gingerly by the hand, like she's a cornered animal, and seats her at the table before pouring her a large glass of water as Octavia barrels down the stairs. She struggles to take in a proper breath as her lungs panic and spasm, and he rubs her back between her shoulder blades until she can cough out a proper sentence.

“Dad...arrested and...I think Mom...had...something to do...with it…” She wheezes. The siblings nod slowly and look at her so sadly, and it's only later after the shock has worn off that Clarke comes to the grim realization that they didn't look the least bit surprised. Octavia puts on Clarke’s favorite movie while Bellamy bundles her up in a blanket like a burrito and carries her to the couch. Octavia lets Clarke cry on her shoulder while Bellamy tells her all about lawyers and how they help people in trouble. When Abby shows up a few hours later, Clarke begs Bellamy to stop her from taking her home, so Bellamy squares his shoulders and puffs his chest out before informing Abby that Clarke will be staying at their house for the night. Her mom is so taken aback by a fourteen year old with several decades worth of self-assurance denying her what she wants that she actually leaves.

After Jake is convicted and sentenced, Abby makes makes all the wrong efforts to mend the bridge between her and Clarke; she lets Clarke's anger and disdain grow until the acidity of her rage burns away whatever mangled connection they'd managed to preserve. She spends so much time at the Blakes' house, stubbornly refusing to go home to Abby, that one day Bellamy brings home an old bed frame he finds on the side of the road. He puts it in Octavia's room with a spare mattress for Clarke to use whenever she needs refuge from Abby, the press, the world, and that's that.


	3. Chapter 3

They are eleven and sixteen when Clarke catches Bellamy kissing a girl in the hammock in their backyard. She really doesn’t mean to interrupt, but when she sees him with Gina she can't help but stare; she likes the way Bellamy is touching her, gently and carefully, but when she sees a flash of tongue she bursts into giggles. He breaks away to glower at Clarke and shoo her away, and she spouts a gleeful apology before running back into the house. He finds her in the kitchen later, grinning ear to ear.

“That was gross.” She tells him.

“It was just kissing.”

“Kissing is gross then.” She says, very sure of herself. He sighs, exasperated.

“You won’t think it’s gross when it’s you kissing people.” Bellamy laughs at her horrified face in spite of his irritation.

“I will _not_ kiss people.” Clarke declared.

“Whatever you say, Princess.” He smiles tiredly and heads up to his room, holding back laughter as Clarke calls up after him, insisting that under _no circumstances_ will she _ever_ be kissing anyone.

She decides once she's alone that maybe it won't be so bad, if she has someone like Bellamy to kiss.

 


	4. Chapter 4

They are fourteen and nineteen when Aurora dies. After years of alcohol abuse and sex work, it’s almost ironic that it isn’t cirrhosis of the liver or an angry John that kills Aurora Blake, but brake failure in a truck that barrels right into her car.

Clarke isn’t sure whether or not she should be at the hospital with them, but when she rushes into the waiting room Octavia crashes right into her arms, and the relief is plain on Bellamy’s face. She stays with them the next few nights, making sure Octavia drinks water and prying hospital bills out of Bellamy’s hands whenever he starts insisting on taking a third job and dropping out of community college. She makes them lumpy cookies and an admittedly slightly-too-salty soup which she forces Octavia to slurp down every night. She brings Octavia all of her homework, which Clarke completes along with her own at their kitchen table.

Bellamy watches numbly as Clarke briskly organizes a memorial service and coordinates the burial with the confidence and grace of a much older woman, watches as she coaxes Octavia out of her pile of blankets in her bed and convinces her to take a few bites of food, and watches her clean their house and do Octavia’s laundry. She orders flowers and a casket, waving Bellamy off when he protests about money, saying it’s taken care of.

Three nights after the funeral he’s pacing around his room, making minute adjustments to the placement of his books and straightening his picture frames. Clarke comes in quietly and sits cross-legged on his bed, considering him for a few minutes. Bellamy hates when she does this because Clarke has always had the uncanny ability to see right through him, and he can feel the weight of her stare sitting directly between his shoulder blades. Her clinical gaze is just slightly too knowing for his comfort, but she's not making him talk about his feelings yet, so he lets her stare. She waits until he straightens the picture of him and Octavia at his graduation for the third time to speak up.

“You’re restless.”

“Don’t you what you mean.”

“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor if you keep pacing.”

“Everything just needs to be straight. Let me live.”

“Bell.” Her tone is so warm and so concerned, and Bellamy feels like shit for making this fourteen year old girl worry, and for - jesus- _organizing his mother’s funeral_ because he couldn’t step up and do it himself. He forces a smile.

“I’m alright, Clarke.” She gives him a very unimpressed look.

“You’re not alright.” He grimaces.

“Okay no, I’m not alright. My mom’s gone and she’s left us with a mess. Fucking typical.”

“So you’re angry at her?” Bellamy sighs and runs his hands through his hair.

“Yeah, I am. Fucked up, right?”

“No, it isn’t.” Clarke says softly. “Aurora loved you but she put piled too many responsibilities on your shoulders. You shouldn’t have to raise a kid when you’re still a kid yourself, or learn how balance bills and keep a family afloat before you’re in high school. Just because she’s gone doesn’t mean you can’t be angry, she made a lot of mistakes.”

Bellamy just blinks at her. Her words don't fit with the big blue eyes and young face looking at back at him earnestly over crossed knees. It’s unsettling coming from a fourteen year old’s mouth, but that’s the sad fact of Clarke - she’s too old for her age, just like him.

“You’re pretty wise for a fourteen year-old, Princess.” She smiles widely.

“I’m going to remember that next time you tell me I’m a dumb kid for liking the Tangled.” She pulls out his laptop and sits him down on the bed, waving him over impatiently when he straightens one last frame. They sit and watch old movies for the rest of the night, his head pillowed on her shoulder when eventually and finally nods off.

 

Clarke spends all her free time with them after Aurora dies, dreading whenever she does have to go home to Abby and always keen to escape back to their house. Octavia eventually goes back to school, and Bellamy starts up at the community college again. Things start to feel normal despite Bellamy working extra shifts and the house feeling a little emptier. Octavia and Clarke are charging through their freshman year of high school together, a fact that makes Bellamy feel both old and stressed, and he's caught off guard one day when he comes home from class to find Octavia sniffling at the kitchen table with her head resting on her forearms and Clarke patting her shoulder sympathetically.

“O? What’s wrong?!” He demanded, frantically running through a list in his mind of what could possibly be wrong. Mean girls at school?? _Boys??_ Periods?? Clarke opened her mouth to explain.

“She -” Octavia cut her off. “Don’t _tell him_.” She protested. “It’s embarrassing.”

“She kissed Atom a few days ago and now he’s ignoring her.” Clarke continued calmly. Octavia glared up at her through the film of tears.

“Traitor.”

“I’ll kill him.” Bellamy growled, spinning around and heading for the door despite not knowing who Atom is or where he could possibly find him.

“Whoa there Fido,” Clarke laughs as she catches up to him and grabs his arm before he can open the front door. “That’s not helping.”

“He made Octavia cry, he has to die.”

“Scaring Atom within an inch of his life isn’t going to make her feel better.” She says mildly.

“It’ll definitely make _me_ feel better.”

“She needs you to go in there and comfort her, not scare the pants off a fifteen year-old idiot.” Bellamy sighs and looks longingly at the front door before turning around to follow her back into the kitchen.

He grabs some bowls before starting to pull eggs from the fridge, rifling through the cabinets for the flour and sugar.

“What are you doing?” Octavia sniffles. He turns around and raises an eyebrow.

“Cookies.” He says, as if that explains everything, and turns back to the ingredients.

Octavia murmurs that she’s going to take a nap while he bakes and slinks upstairs, leaving Clarke and Bellamy together in the kitchen.

“This is why you don’t bother with boys, Clarke, they’re all assholes.”

“You’re a boy.”

“Yeah, and I’m an asshole.”

“Not always.” He smiles at her indignant tone and flicks flour at her.

“Thanks Princess, but really, don’t go kissing boys. You and Octavia will send me to an early grave.”

Clarke looks at him a little uncertainly and he has to prompt her a few times before she speaks.

"Is it okay if I want to kiss girls too?"He blinks at her a few times before responding.

"Of course, just make sure they’re not assholes."

He watches relief crash over her face as she nods shakily, realizing that this might be the first time she’s ever mentioned it to anyone or even dared to say it out loud. Once the timer on the oven dings he pushes a cookie toward her and nudges her shoulder gently as he passes her to take the rest of them up the stairs.


	5. Chapter 5

They are fifteen and twenty when Octavia’s wild streak starts. Clarke and Bellamy fret as she starts to stay out late with a string of boys they don’t approve of and comes home smelling like cigarettes. She shows up early one morning with a stud in her nose and vibrant streaks of pink through her hair, and Bellamy just about has a stroke. Clarke watches him hover anxiously, not sure if she needs more space or less.

Octavia announces one night that she and Clarke are going to a party, and squeezes herself into the tiniest, glitziest dress she can manage. It takes an hour but she finally convinces Clarke to don a miniskirt and a stretchy black halter top. Bellamy watches Clarke trail behind her friend uncertainly and tug at her skirt like she wished it were longer. Bellamy slips her his leather jacket and whispers to call if they need him as Octavia blows him a kiss and tugs Clarke out the door.

Bellamy wakes up to a call from Clarke at 2:00 in the morning, and as soon as she can slur out a coherent address he’s out the door. He pulls up to a house that’s swarming with kids, and is about to go search for them when he spots Clarke pulling a stumbling Octavia through the front door, looking stressed and pulling his jacket tightly around her. He bundles them into the car and takes them home, not quite able to keep the disappointment off his face.

“Sorry, Bell.” Clarke murmurs. “Strong drinks.” In his rearview mirror he can see her slumped against the window with Octavia's head in her lap, the sliding light of the street lamps playing over her guilty expression. The shadows dancing over her rouged cheeks and heavily made-up eyes make her look older in a way that makes him sad. He sighs.

“We’ve all been there, princess, I’m glad you called.”

He half-carries an impressively drunk Octavia upstairs, leaves a trashcan and glass of water by her bed, and heads for his own. A few minutes after his head finally hits the pillow he hears his door creak open, and looks up to see Clarke standing there in one of his old t-shirts. She’s managed to scrub most of the makeup off of her face, and she looks so young and small dwarfed in his shirt that he can’t find it in him to be irritated.

“O is mad that I called you.” she says sadly. “Can I sleep in here?”

He nods before mumbling something about making himself a blanket nest on the floor.

“Don’t be dumb.” She snorts as she shoves her way into his bed next to him. “Go back to bed, Bell. Love you.”

“Love you too, now go the fuck to sleep so I’m not dead during my shift tomorrow.”


	6. Chapter 6

They are sixteen and twenty-one when Clarke starts dating her first boyfriend. Bellamy doesn’t like Finn Collins in the _slightest_ when Clarke brings him around to the house; he doesn’t like the way that Finn is too into his hair and sticks his nose up at anything he considers beneath him, or the way that his hand always curls possessively around Clarke’s waist. It drifts lower once during his visit, and Bellamy glares pointedly down at him until he hastily draws it back. Clarke is, in Bellamy’s opinion, _way_ too good for this prick. He tells her that one day and she dismisses him.

“Don’t be an ass.”

“ _He’s_ the ass, not me.”

“Stop that, he likes me.”

“Well yeah, I said he’s an ass not an idiot.” She just smiles evenly at him and he gives up.

“Okay fine, I’m an ass, but you’re still too good for him.”

“You’d say that about anyone I bring by.” She says fondly.

“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

Clarke seems happy with him at first, so Bellamy makes an effort to hold back _most_ of his biting remarks whenever he has to put up with Finn’s presence. He watches, unimpressed, as she dolls herself up for dates with him and talks excitedly with Octavia about sex (He’s not meant to overhear that, and he really wishes he didn’t. The thought of that kid's grubby paws all over Clarke makes him a little nauseous).

He’s doing homework for one of his classes at the kitchen table on a Friday night when Clarke comes bounding down the stairs in a strappy black dress with her hair and makeup done, all smiles and bouncy curls.

“It took Octavia two hours to help you with _that_?” The smile slides off her face and he mentally kicks himself as she nervously asks him what looks wrong.

“Nothing, you look great, really. What’s the occasion?”

“Our six month anniversary.” Her head turns at a honk from outside and Bellamy smiles smugly because the prick must be too scared to come to the door. Smart boy.

Bellamy feels much less smug three hours later when Clarke comes tumbling through the front door with mascara streaming down her cheeks. She runs past him and up the stairs before he can ask what happened, and he hears a muffled sob as she slams Octavia’s door shut.

He follows her up and finds her crying on his sister’s shoulder, and he can feel the rage rolling off of Octavia in waves. Bellamy stands there helplessly for a moment before demanding to know what happened. In between hiccups and sniffles, Clarke tells him about how dinner went well and they headed back to his place (Bellamy grimaces) only to find a beautiful brunette named Raven waiting on his front porch. Bellamy’s clenching his fists and itching to go teach this kid a lesson, but when Octavia goes to order them a pizza, Clarke stretches out her arm to pull him next to her on the bed. He obliges and she curls into his side immediately.

“First love is the hardest to get over. You'll be okay” Bellamy says softly. He feels her shake her head against his shoulder.

“I don't think I loved him, but I could've. I’m just so embarrassed, Bell.”

“ _You_ have nothing to be embarrassed about.” They fall silent as he lets her lace her fingers through his, and they stay like that a while.

Clarke mentions a few times over the next week that Finn shows up at her classes, at her car after school, and at her mom’s house. It’s really no surprise that eventually he shows up at the Blake’s. Clarke freezes as she sees his car pull up, and out of the corner of her eye she sees Bellamy rise from the couch with a thunderous expression on his face. He throws open the door and asks a flinching Finn just what the fuck he thinks he’s doing on his front stoop. Shoving Bellamy back inside before things can get ugly, Clarke tells Finn flatly that if he ever tries to come near her again, she won’t hold Bell back anymore. She slams the door in his face and calmly head back to the living room.

A few weeks after they break up Bellamy finds Clarke nervously pacing in his kitchen and wringing her hands, giving vague answers when he asks what’s wrong. He puts his books down and starts to cook dinner, and she eventually asks when Octavia will be home.

“She’s working a double tonight, she won’t be home for a few hours.”

“Fuck.” He turns and narrows his eyes at her.

“What’s wrong.”

“Nothing.” She knows that he knows she’s lying, and after a few moments of close scrutiny she sighs and mumbles something.

“What’s that?”

“I said I think I’m pregnant.” She blurts out.

Bellamy promptly drops the pan he’s holding.

A half hour later he’s sitting next to her on the tub, looking at the test he sped to the drug store for. She’s squeezing the everloving shit out of his hand and jiggling her legs anxiously, and Bellamy is trying desperately to think of whether or not he could scrape up enough money for an abortion if she decides that’s what she wants.

When the five minutes are up Clarke is so relieved that she bursts into tears, and Bellamy wraps an arm around her while he lets out the breath he’d been holding.

“Thank fucking God,” she breathes, “can you imagine if I were pregnant with Finn Collins’ child?”

“I’d rather not.” Bellamy mutters.


End file.
